Al-ḥadīth al-mutawātir:1 that which is narrated, on the basis of sensation rather than pure reason,2 by a number whose collusion upon falsehood is rendered impossible by ordinary custom, and that alone;3 or which such a number narrated from a like number, from beginning to end.4 The narration of those at the end of the chain likewise rests upon sensation.5
The first definition pertains to a mutawātir that has but a single generation (ṭabaqah); the second pertains to a mutawātir that has two generations or more.6
The mutawātir yields necessary, immediate knowledge7 in every case.89
By its very nature, the mutawātir does not require the moral uprightness (ʿadāla) of its narrators.10
Derived from tawātur, literally to follow consecutively (as in tawātur al-maṭar: the rain fell in succession). [tr.] ↩
Al-Samʿānī said in Qawāṭiʿ al-Adilla (1/328): "Report (khabar) differs from the domain of opinion and doctrine: report comes from sensation and observation, in which error does not arise, whereas the holding of doctrinal positions proceeds by opinion and ijtihād, in which error may arise according to the obscurity of the matter and the subtlety of its evidence." Al-Ṭībī in al-Khulāṣa (p. 15) said: "A condition of tawātur is that the knowledge of the transmitters be necessary and grounded in something sensed; for had they reported to us the origin of the world, or something based on conjecture, no certain knowledge would arise from it." ↩
This is the first definition of mutawātir; what follows is a second definition of it, and their referents differ, as will be explained. ↩
Al-Ṭībī said in al-Khulāṣa (p. 16): "The second condition for tawātur is that its two ends and its middle be equally numerous, so that collusion upon falsehood is impossible. This is why no certainty arose for us regarding the truthfulness of the Jews, despite their numbers, when they reported that Mūsā, peace be upon him, denied any abrogator of his sharīʿah; nor regarding the truthfulness of the Shīʿa in transmitting an explicit designation of the imāmate of ʿAlī (raḍ. ʿanhu), because the report was originally fabricated by individuals and circulated, with the transmitters multiplying only later in their own era." End of quotation. ↩
Ḥāfiẓ Ibn Ḥajar, in Sharḥ al-Nukhba (p. 8), added a fifth condition: that their report be accompanied by its yielding knowledge to the one who hears it. He said: because this yielding of knowledge may fail to occur in the case of some. Muḥammad Akram al-Sindī objected to this, holding that the Ḥāfiẓ stands alone in the condition, since the yielding of knowledge is one of the effects that follow upon tawātur, and a thing precedes its own effect by its very essence, so it is not sound to bring it into the reality of that thing; and the claim that it may fail to occur is inadmissible, because it cannot be conceived once the impossibility of collusion mentioned above holds together with the remaining three conditions. See Imʿān al-Naẓar, pp. 18 to 20, and with it the manuscript, p. 24. An example of a mutawātir ḥadīth: "Whosoever lies against me deliberately, let him take his seat in the Fire." Some seventy-odd Companions narrated it, as ʿAllāmah al-ʿIrāqī said; indeed some have brought the number up to a hundred. See: Tadrīb al-Rāwī, 2/177; al-Taqyīd wa-l-Īḍāḥ, p. 212; Fatḥ al-Bārī, 1/270 (110); Anīs al-Sārī, 10/58 to 110. ↩
Qafw al-Athar fī Ṣafw ʿUlūm al-Athar, p. 46. I (the author) say: it is thus known that the first definition is for a mutawātir which has only a single ṭabaqah, such as a marfūʿ ḥadīth in relation to the tābiʿūn, since between them and the Prophet ﷺ there is only the generation of the ṣaḥābah. The second definition is for a mutawātir which has two generations or more, such as a marfūʿ ḥadīth in relation to the atbāʿ al-tābiʿūn and those after them. Were one to say in their time, "This is a mutawātir ḥadīth," the second definition would apply, that is, the tawātur must run from beginning to end; whereas in the time of the tābiʿūn, that condition would not be needed. Reflect on this. There is therefore no conflict between the two definitions. And Allāh knows best. ↩
ʿIlm al-badīhī is also known as ʿilm al-yaqīn, ʿilm al-ḍarūrī and ʿilm al-qaṭʿī. [tr.] ↩
The answer depends on which mutawātir is meant, Muftī Muḥammad ʿAbd al-Mālik al-Kumillāʾī argues at al-Wajīz fī shayʾ min muṣṭalaḥ al-ḥadīth al-sharīf, pp. 156 to 163. The mutawātir of the uṣūliyyūn is tawātur al-ṭabaqah, a whole generation reporting from a whole generation with no named chain; of this Fakhr al-Islām al-Bazdawī (d. 482 AH) says that it "necessitates the knowledge of certainty, in the rank of eyesight, as necessary knowledge" «وهذا القسم يُوجِب علمَ اليقين بمنزلة العيان علماً ضرورياً» (p. 159), and ʿAbd al-Qāhir al-Baghdādī (d. 429 AH) that "the knowledge arising from tawātur is necessary, not acquired" «والعلم الواقع عن التواتر ضروري غير مكتسب», the mustafīḍ between tawātur and āḥād yielding acquired knowledge (p. 160). The mutawātir sanadī of the muḥaddithūn, a report carried by many named chains, is another matter: its chains and routes must first be examined for freedom from falsehood, wahm and iḍṭirāb, and "so that it be known that the sum of its sound routes has reached a limit at which their sum bequeaths acquired certain knowledge" (p. 161). Ḥāfiẓ Ibn Ḥajar, on this reckoning, applied the uṣūlī definition, on which narrators need no investigation, to the sanadī case he was in fact discussing; ʿAllāmah al-Bayhaqī, quoted against him here, calls the knowledge such a report yields "acquired knowledge (certain, theoretical knowledge)" «العلم المكتسب (العلم اليقيني النظري)» (p. 162). [tr.] ↩
Mutawātir is of two types: mutawātir lafẓī, that which is mutawātir in wording, such as the ḥadīth "Whosoever lies against me deliberately, let him take his seat in the Fire"; and mutawātir maʿnawī, that which is mutawātir in meaning though not in wording, such as the aḥādīth on raising the hands in supplication. That division is by what in a report is mutawātir, its wording or its meaning. Muftī Muḥammad ʿAbd al-Mālik al-Kumillāʾī divides the mutawātir a second way in his al-Wajīz fī shayʾ min muṣṭalaḥ al-ḥadīth al-sharīf, by the manner in which the tawātur runs, and makes it threefold: the mutawātir by the tawātur of a whole generation «المتواتر بتواتر الطبقة», which is the mutawātir of the uṣūliyyūn, its narrators neither enumerated nor named, and which the imāms call khabar ʿāmma ʿan ʿāmma (pp. 159, 175); the mutawātir by the tawātur of inherited practice «المتواتر بتواتر العمل المتوارَث», taken by each generation from the one before it, from us back to the age of the Message; and the mutawātir sanadī, carried by named chains. The first two, he holds, are no part of the mutawātir sanadī, in which the isnād is investigated (p. 162). [tr.] ↩
Sharḥ Nukhbat al-Fikr, pp. 10 to 11. ↩
Khabar al-wāḥid is any narration that does not meet the conditions of tawātur. It yields presumption (ẓann), and has three sub-categories by number of narrators.
Al-mudraj is the mixing of what belongs to one speaker with what belongs to another without indication. It falls into mudraj al-matn (more common) and mudraj al-sanad.
The Ḥanafīs classify narrators by ʿadāla, ḍabṭ and fiqh, with the mastūr as a disputed third category and the majhūl, whose narration falls into five cases
When a single narrator takes a ḥadīth in solitary fashion from a prominent imām, it is called gharīb (literally, strange, or one who is alone).
